I've been told that my 14" is ready to go. I was asked to box up my beta unit and await the truck that will come to pick it up. I made it very clear that since this weekend is the Messier Marathon and my clubs site is expected to be really busy, I wanted to be SURE I'd have the new one by the weekend or I'd like to hang on to the one I have until next week.

I received my 10" LX850 at the end of February, and have had two good nights with it so far (I have been traveling since then). It performed beautifully once I had it properly aligned. The first night out I wanted so badly to get an image that I badly aligned it (should have done an extra pass). The second night, I used my CCD to center object instead of the reticle, and I was able to do a much better job -- I didn't try the drift method yet -- that will happen when I get back to the scope. I plan to leave the mount up and cover it after that -- it is fairly heavy, and the only way you can store it in the original box is to set it back to 0-degrees.

For the second night, I was able to get my AO-8 into the mix -- the Starlock Guided so well that the guide star I used for my AO-8 stayed on the chip at the very edge of it's FOV and just the AO-8 miror was used for tilt -- not the guide motors.

Oh? I had not heard that. Every discussion I've had with them these very many months have been that they are assembled and tested in Mexico and shipped direct. My original Lx800 came straight from Mexico as did my LX850 beta unit.

My most recent email with on of their VP's, when I asked about the status of my 14, was that he would contact the guys down in Mexico and find out about it.
If they are in deed shipping them to Irvine for a final test that would be great and most welcome in my opinion but it doesn't seem likely. I'll hopefully hear something today on it and I'll ask for clarification.

Irvine is a 45 minute drive from me. I would hand deliver their beta unit back to them and pick up my new one. This really has me curious about what is going on. I called their support earlier to ask about mine. They could not find my order. That doesn't bode well for me. I've left voice mails and emails that haven't been returned either. I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt that they are just really busy and my stuff is being handled but I am getting very frustrated.